New ProtoStar demo unveiled at Mobile World Congress, is first app to use follow-up to OpenGL

VIDEO: Unreal shows Vulkan API running on Samsung Galaxy S7

Epic Games has released a video that shows the power of the Vulkan API on mobile devices.

Unveiled at GDC last year, Vulkan is the follow-up to OpenGL and aims to push graphics further than ever before. Epic demonstrated this with ProtoStar, a 3D demo built with Unreal Engine 4 that debuted at Mobile World Congress today.

You can check out the footage for yourself below.

ProtoStar was shown running on a brand new Samsung Galaxy S7 and users Vulkan to support more draw calls, more dynamic objects onscreen at any time and faster performance.

It also debuts a number of new mobile-centre features for Unreal Engine 4, including dynamic planar reflections, full GPU particle support, high quality ASTC texture compression, and full scene dynamic cascaded shadows. You can find a full list of new features at the Unreal blog.

“The new industry-standard Vulkan API brings key elements of high-end console graphics technology to mobile devices, and Samsung is leading the way with the amazing new Galaxy S7,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. 

“As the first engine supporting Vulkan, Unreal Engine 4 provides a solid foundation for developers joining in the mobile graphics revolution.”

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